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“This law recognizes an economic and fiscal imperative,” Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin said as he signed the bill into law at the State House.

“We must control the growth in health care costs that are putting families at economic risk and making it harder for small employers to do business.”

Vermont’s single payer plan was voted through late in April, and will make it the first state in the nation to go beyond even the progressive health care reforms proposed by the Obama administration and passed by Congress in 2010.

However, the state will still have to wait to have its new law implemented. The state still needs permission from the federal government to opt out of the national health care plan, and also needs to meet some key financial criteria to ensure its plan costs less than the national version.

The framework of the state plan could be instituted as early as 2014, and the single-payer component would go into effect three years later, in 2017.

The only reason the United States does not have single payer universal healthcare is GREED! The insurance companies are a completely unnecessary middleman. The pharmaceutical companies and medical specialists want to be able to continue to charge exorbitant fees for their products or services with minimal competition. With the money these companies or interests have spent in lobbying our Congressmen against universal healthcare, we could have funded years of healthcare for our citizens. Vote smarter America!!!

I am a Canadian and have never had a problem getting in to see my doctor. For those who don't have a family doctor, there are walk-in clinics where you see a doctor & it is still covered by the single-payer health system. You just show them your card. There are some small towns in rural and/or isolated areas that have trouble keeping doctors, which has nothing to do with the single payer system and everything to do with the doctors not wanting themselves & their families to be out in the boonies (note we are further north than the USA & boonies can mean cold winters, bad roads, weather-related airplane cancellations, & a lack of teachers for the same reasons!). They are trying to find incentives to get doctors to go out to the boonies & stay there for at least 5 years. The great white north is apparently not all that appealing! There can be wait times to see specialists & to access some diagnostics & treatments IF YOUR MEDICAL CONDITION IS NOT LIFE-THREATENING (i.e. ELECTIVE, like when I went in for tests on my varicose veins). If it is life-threatening, you will get bumped up and get in really quick. A friend of my cousin's daughter who lives in a small town was diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer and she was sent to the big city (Vancouver) and operated on within days, and given follow-up treatment both in Vancouver and then back in her own town. All covered by the public medical system.